BY ALBERT CHEN

A porcelain vessel made for a scholar’s desk commanded £538,100 at Bonhams London, becoming the leading result in The Marsh Collection: Art for the Literati (Part V) on November 5, 2026. The Qianlong-period famille rose brushpot, catalogued as an exceptionally rare “Tang Ying” example, combines a painted mountain landscape with poetry and seals that connect it to the artistic world of China’s imperial porcelain workshops. The reported price includes buyer’s premium.

The result brought renewed attention to a collection built over four decades by Sam and Marion Marsh, who began collecting after moving to Hong Kong in 1970. Guided by collector and dealer Adrian Joseph, they developed a particular interest in brushpots and objects made for the scholar’s desk. Sam Marsh later published Brushpots: A Collector’s View, documenting a field in which close study can be as important as the initial attraction of the object.

A Landscape Wrapped Around Porcelain

Only 13.5 centimetres high, the brushpot unfolds a landscape of turquoise mountains, pink-leaved trees, pavilions and boats around its cylindrical surface. Bonhams associates its Pianyue seal with Tang Ying, the influential superintendent of the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen. The catalogue also cites research linking the Guwanshi seal to the painter Lü Ji, offering a glimpse of the collaboration behind the decoration. These are connections to a workshop and its artistic circle, rather than a simple claim that every element was executed by Tang Ying alone.

Its documented history adds another dimension. The vessel appeared at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 1993, was acquired from Spink in 1994, and featured in the Oriental Ceramic Society’s China Without Dragons exhibition in 2016. It was also published in Marsh’s 2020 book. Among the same sale’s other highlights, a Shunzhi wucai “Eighteen Luohans” vase and a Kangxi underglaze-red “Zhong Kui and Demon” vase each achieved £64,500. The brushpot’s much larger result made the scholar’s desk the setting for one of the week’s most striking prices.

Source: Bonhams.

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